Ashes
by googleduckie
Summary: "The burning ashes danced in the gentle night breeze, swirling with the dry dust in abstract images..." A small sketch of a man at the beginning of his quest for "forgotten knowledge, hidden potions, lost incantations. And power. Most importantly power."


Author's Note: The idea for this story came to me at band practice last night when I smelled a fire burning and had Harry Potter on the brain. I didn't pay much attention for the last two hours because I was busy coming up with the first few sentences.. Read it and leave me a little note telling me what you think of it!  
  
Disclaimer: I own the misshapen rock and emerald cloak. Nada mas!  
  
  
  
  
  
The burning ashes danced in the gentle night breeze, swirling with the dry dust in abstract images. The stars above seemed to imitate the flames of the small fire, softly lighting the endless darkness of the moonless sky. A solitary man sat on a misshapen rock at the fireside, his long, pale fingers absent-mindedly twisting the gold ties of his thick emerald cloak. His eyes seemed to study the every movement of the flickering flames, as though the way they moved had a direct and influential effect on his life and his emotions.  
  
He reached inside the cloak, never shifting his gaze from the fire, and pulled out a perfectly cylindrical piece of wood which he began to slowly twirl between the index and middle fingers on his left hand. Unsummoned memories began floating, almost meandering through his mind. . .  
  
  
  
. . . An elderly matron scolding him harshly for turning another child's hair bright green, ignoring his screams and whimpers insisting that he didn't do it . . . owls flying towards him, holding letters tightly in their claws, each with a different message, each with a different meaning. . . a large snake slithering through old, stone pipes, whispering unheard threats . . . a ceremony awarding him a Special Services to the School Award, his ironic smile and he graciously accepted the medal . . . his graduation, as Head Boy, from the highly esteemed Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry . . . millions of memories, each connected by thin threads, tying everything together into the complex web that formed his life.  
  
The man sighed, dangling the smooth stick down until it touched the ground; he drew random figures, random diagrams into the dust and watched as the constant wind blew them away. Still moving the stick, he thought back to the most recent memory in his mind, the freshest one which obsessed him mind and soul. The three Muggles, sitting on an elegant couch, dressed in clothes much too stylish for the rural town they lived in. None of them knew who he was. Even worse, none of them cared to know. What he had done had been so simple, really. He hadn't spent so many hours in the Restricted Section of the school library for nothing, reading and studying information no wizard should ever have access to. He had disappeared immediately after his task in that cold house had been successfully accomplished. It wasn't that he was afraid of getting caught, of being in trouble. . . No, this man feared nothing. 'Well, almost nothing,' he thought with a sudden shudder, remembering cold blue eyes that seemed to be able to read his mind and, at times, his very soul. The man shook his head almost violently, attempting to banish the sight of those eyes from his memory. The man and the brilliant mind behind those haunting eyes was the only thing the cloaked figure feared, and he feared him more than anything in the world. He left the house simply because there was no point in hanging around, pretending to feel sorry about what he had just done. He could waste no time with such feelings, with any feelings. He had learned long ago that feelings were a sign of weakness; emotions were unimportant in the large scheme of things.  
  
He had just taken his first real step for his new life. And it would be his only noticeable step for a long time. He was planning on leaving this place soon, leaving the land he grew up in to journey throughout the world in search of supposedly impossible things. Things that everyone told him he would die hunting for . . . things like forgotten knowledge, hidden potions, lost incantations. And power. Most importantly, complete, extreme, immortal power.  
  
The man gave a low laugh and slowly stood up. He raised the thin stick, grasping it firmly in his left hand, and muttered a few unrecognizable words. There was a small flash of light as the fire began to fade. He waved the wand smoothly, guiding the smoke rising from the dying fire, strange sounds floating out of his unopened mouth. He turned sharply, his left heel leaving a thick mark in the dust where he pivoted. He walked slowly away, ready and free, for once in his life, to move at his own pace, to do what he wanted, what he needed, whenever he desired.  
  
  
  
The wind blew quietly, causing the walking man to pull his cloak closer around his body. The cooling ashes danced in the gentle night breeze, swirling with the dry dust in abstract images. Suddenly, everything stopped. The ashes lay frozen in the form of a mysterious shape, a deathly skull with a winding snake protruding from its screaming mouth. The wind blew once more, harsher than before, but the ashes remained in their haunting position.  
  
The man looked back and smiled beneath his cloak, a smile of a madman who has just found peace and serenity in the bitter world, then turned back and took another step before disappearing with the curling wind.  
  
  
  
Tom Marvolo Riddle was beginning his quest for power, and he wasn't looking back. 


End file.
